


reassemble it

by fakepunk



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Family Dynamics, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mommy Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Oikawa Tooru-centric, POV Oikawa Tooru, Pining, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, it’s only at the start and it’s not necessarily self harm, tooru steps on glass and that’s it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25281865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakepunk/pseuds/fakepunk
Summary: When Tooru was six years old, he discovered—unbeknownst to him at the time—two of the most important things in his life: volleyball and Iwaizumi Hajime. It was ironic that he had stumbled upon them hand in hand—quite literally, too.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 14
Kudos: 289
Collections: iwaoi lol screaming





	reassemble it

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6422014) by [kittebasu (chanyeol)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chanyeol/pseuds/kittebasu). 
  * Inspired by [the certain things we lack](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379625) by [deanpendragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanpendragon/pseuds/deanpendragon). 



> there isn’t much i can say about this fic other than the fact that i shamelessly projected onto oikawa a ridiculous amount, being in love with hajime damn well included. hajime has two hands for a reason. this fic is admittedly very personal and writing it over the past month and a half has been a long journey of yearning... and listening to paramore and frank ocean. it holds a special place in my heart. i hope you, wonderful reader, end up making a place for it in yours.
> 
> as always, thank you dearly to my beautiful beta, kam, for proofreading this. i’m forever sorry for making you cry. (for reference, kameos are: a comment kam has made while editing that summarizes the fic/chapter)
> 
> today’s kameo: sigh... i feel dread in this chili's tonight
> 
> i’ve also made a companion [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2x1tgdZ6mln6Y4nXB0fMTc?si=Kj_8qCRsQv2TTNlGKceyUg)! if you want to listen to it, be sure to listen to it without shuffling on!
> 
> enjoy <3

With one swift accidental swipe of an arm, a glass tips over the edge of the dinner table, collapsing to the floor and instantaneously fracturing into thousands of fragments with a loud shatter. Three pairs of brown eyes dart towards the collision site, transparent shards strewn across tile. Two pairs of brown eyes sear their gazes into the outlier.

“Tooru,” his mother starts, brows knitting furiously. Her digits around the chopsticks she holds tighten into a vice grip, knuckles white and menacing.

“It was an accident,” Tooru excuses, pulling his legs from the ground and tucking them under himself. He glances at his sister for assistance, though she silently eats her food and averts her attention to something on the wall.

“I’ll clean it up, mom.”

“No.” She stands from her spot, glass crunching beneath the soles of her slippers. Chopsticks clatter onto the table as she drops them and stomps to the pantry, retrieving a dustpan and a brush. “You wouldn’t have had to clean anything up if you paid attention to what you were doing. You’re going to get glass in your feet because you never wear your slippers and then I’m going to be the one to pull out the shards from your skin.”

The expression on Tooru’s face shifts into a copy of the one his mother wears: brows furrowed and lips flattened in a thin line—aggravated, irritated. “It was an accident.”

“Repeating yourself isn’t going to un-break the glass,” his mother barks from her crouched position on the floor, cautious of the glass. She sweeps the pieces into the dustpan. The kitchen is silent aside from the scratch of bristles collecting glass and dust.

“Why are you getting so mad? It’s just a glass.” Tooru grits his teeth the moment the sentence fully escapes his mouth, inhaling. He squares his shoulders and pulls at a hangnail.

“And who’s the one cleaning it? I always have to pick up after you. You’re seventeen years old, act like it.”

Hot rage fills Tooru up like a shaken can of soda, pricking every pore in his body, begging to burst. He’s heard this from her time and time again, a motto she insists on instilling within him somehow, indirectly controlling him. Any time he does something even mildly wrong, he’s hit with those three words: _act like it._

Recklessly, Tooru pushes himself from the table, the legs of his chair screeching against the floor, and plants his feet down. He winces when glass pierces into the bottoms of his feet, specks of blood inking the tile as he storms out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. Red footprints trail behind him. Slamming his door shut, he slides onto the floor and buries his face into his palms; he knows his mother will berate him for giving her more to clean.

***

When Tooru was six years old, he discovered—unbeknownst to him at the time—two of the most important things in his life: volleyball and Iwaizumi Hajime. It was ironic that he had stumbled upon them hand in hand—quite literally, too.

Summer had always been Tooru’s favourite season, primarily, for admittedly conceited reasons, because his birthday occurred right at the peak of it. The week prior had been scorching, sun ablaze over the hills, and the heat had fallen onto the following few days. On the evening of his birthday, Tooru had been playing in his backyard after coming from the park where his sister had taken him earlier. With Tooru at six and Nyoko at sixteen, their age difference was one of the things, among many others, that separated them. Surely Nyoko appeased her little brother on the occasion, but she had always said, verbatim, that she was far too old for Tooru’s antics. So after she had spent a stint of time with her little brother for his birthday, taking him to the park and treating him to ice cream, she left him to play in their backyard. Frankly, with the company of his own imagination, Tooru hadn’t minded at all.

The sunlight had progressively dimmed while Tooru chased a firefly, bare feet padding along blades of untrimmed grass. With an uneven, toothy grin, Tooru had run after the little bug until it landed on one of the panels of wood in the fence that spanned the perimeter of their backyard.

Carelessly, Tooru had quickly reached out to grab the bug but to no avail. It had flown away, up, up, up into the sky until it was reduced to a mere yellow spot blinking in the dark. In retaliation to his failed attempt, Tooru had whined and crossed his arms, twirling on his heel and shoving himself onto the fence. Behind him one of the wood panels shifted and fell right into the neighbour’s backyard.

Luckily for Tooru, his shoulders, albeit still small, had grown big enough for them to brace his fall. He had caught himself on either side of the fencing that sandwiched the hole, yelping as he stumbled into the neighbour’s backyard. Before Tooru could have even blinked, a volleyball bonked him in the head. This had caused him to fully tumble into the neighbouring yard.

“Ow!” Tooru had cried, his voice squeaky and loud.

From above a figure towered over him with an expression as terrified as the one on Tooru’s own face. It was a kid. He couldn’t have possibly been older than himself. In one of his hands was the perpetrating volleyball and in the other was a giant net.

“I’m sorry!” the new voice had barked, dropping his things to crouch by Tooru’s side. “Are you okay?”

“No!” Tooru had whined. He rubbed the part of his head where he was hit, glaring up at this kid. The kid was compactly built, short and stocky, although taller than him, with a sympathetic look on his face. Although he had been offering a comforting look, there’d been a wrinkle between his brow that was seemingly permanent. “You threw a ball at my face! It hurt!”

“I thought you were breaking into my house!”

“I wasn’t! I’m only six, how could I do that?”

With a shrug, the kid plopped onto the grass and scooted beside Tooru. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Mhm. Good.” Tooru swivelled his legs under himself to sit on them, placing his tiny hands upon his lap. “I’m Oikawa Tooru. I don’t think that volleyball can fit in your net.”

They’d both shifted their eyes to glance at the discarded volleyball and the net. “I wasn’t trying to catch the volleyball, I was trying to catch bugs. But I can’t find many in my backyard.”

Tooru’s mouth had quirked into a grin. “There’s a lot of fireflies in my yard! Do you want to come?”

The kid mirrored Tooru’s smile. He nodded and picked his things up.

After lugging the kid’s net and volleyball through their new makeshift secret door in the fence, Tooru had taken claim over the volleyball while his companion had swung the net around until he caught fireflies. The night had fallen by then, enveloping the sky in a black, speckled blanket. Their infantile wonder threatened the moonlight’s brightness.

“You still haven’t told me your name,” Tooru had stated while tossing the volleyball in the air repeatedly. He’d grown an attachment to it in a sparse half hour. For his next birthday, he’d planned to ask his mom for a volleyball.

“Oh,” the kid had responded from the spot he sat at, legs tucked against his chest and eyes trained to a firefly perched on his knee. “Iwaizumi Hajime.”

“Iwaizumi Hajime!” Tooru had exclaimed gleefully, throwing the volleyball in the air. As the ball fell he caught it, wrapping his short arms around it. “That’s so long. I hate it.”

Hajime frowned. “I didn’t choose it!”

Tooru had taken a moment to think, narrowing his eyes and glowering at Hajime with a scrutinizing look. The contemplation on Tooru’s face fizzled when he came to a revelation. He giggled. “Iwa-chan! I’m calling you that, okay?”

Silently, Hajime mouthed his newfound nickname with a scowl far too fierce for a kid his age. “Why do you get to call me that? I’m okay with calling you Oikawa.”

“Because,” Tooru had started, collecting his six-year-old logic, “Iwaizumi is longer than Oikawa. Ee-wa-ee-zoo-mee. Oy-ka-wa.”

“It’s the same, Oikawa. You’re just making it longer!”

“No it’s not! Besides, who else calls you Iwa-chan?”

Hajime’s shoulders drooped; the firefly on his knee had flown away. “No one.”

“See? It’s my special nickname for you, okay? No one else calls you Iwa-chan but me.”

Hajime hadn’t argued past that, and Tooru had grinned, satisfied.

***

A stabbing sensation rooted in Tooru’s soles courses fleetingly throughout his calves as he leaps, arms elongated upwards and fingers forming a triangle to host a rendezvous point for a volleyball, and crashes down completely when he lands on his feet, ripping into his skin. Before the fall, the volleyball taps his fingers and is sent flying towards a wing spiker. He is blinded by the ache and is unable to witness his set firsthand. The fleshy _smack_ of a volleyball against a palm reverberates through the gym; a solid bounce echoing from the opposite court follows suit. When his teammates cheer, he swallows up the pain and grins.

“Nice one, Oikawa,” Issei hums with a lopsided smile, holding his hand up. Tooru connects their hands with a high-five.

“Don’t act surprised! It’s _me,_ ” Tooru responds cockily, standing stiffly. His grin twitches and he wipes it away before it falters, forcing his mouth into a neutral state. Takahiro pats him on the shoulder before returning to his position. Tooru waddles back into place and prays that his white socks haven’t turned red.

After practice ends, Tooru takes a seat on one of the benches in the gymnasium and groans under his breath. His eyes lock onto the toes of his sneakers, intense gaze boring holes into the fabric. He digs his fingers into the meat of his thigh.

“Oikawa. Is your knee acting up again?”

Hajime stands before him with his arms folded over his chest. His jaw is clenched sternly; his eyes are searching.

“What?” says Tooru dumbly. He loosens his posture and raises a brow. “My knee is fine, I forgot it’s even injured! Thanks for reminding me, Iwa-chan!”

Displeased and knowing, Hajime presses, “You were off today.”

“If we weren’t friends I would call you a stalker, Iwa-chan. It’s rude to stare.”

Tooru yelps when Hajime socks him, mercifully lightly, in the arm. He cradles his bicep and pouts at his friend.

“I didn’t have to stare to notice you limping. You were on your toes the whole game; Makki noticed too but he knew trying to talk to you wouldn’t work.”

“So he sent you? That’s so annoying! It makes me seem like an asshole.” Hajime shoots him a glare that says, _you definitely are._ Tooru can’t even argue.

“Oikawa.”

“Iwa-chan.”

Briefly, Tooru tears his gaze from Hajime and fixes it to a smudge on the floor. Against the glossy tanned wood is a black streak of rubber, evidently a mark from a shoe. Beside his black sneakers it looks incriminating. Tooru sighs and leans his cheek on his shoulder.

“I dropped a cup and accidentally stepped on the glass. There isn’t glass in my feet, I’m not an idiot. It barely hurts when I walk.”

Hajime replies with ambiguous silence. He stares at the same black stroke on the floor for a beat. Quietly, he murmurs, “You are an idiot.”

Tooru doesn’t have to compel himself to laugh. He chuckles—softly, fondly, easily. “Wanna carry me home, Iwa-chan?”

Catching the abrupt look of consideration plastered to Hajime’s face coerces Tooru to laugh harder. He covers his mouth and curls into himself, shoulders shaking. The initial thought warms him. Hajime used to carry him on his back when they were kids—to help him reach an interesting leaf on a tree that fascinated him, to grab candies from the highest shelf in the kitchen, sometimes for no reason at all. But they grew older. They grew out of the need for Hajime to carry Tooru.

“Did you bandage your feet?” Hajime says after clearing his throat.

“Mhm. Wanna check?” Tooru flaunts a leg and wiggles his foot.

“You’re so gross,” Hajime grumbles, disgruntled. He rises from his spot and jerks his head in the direction of the gymnasium doors. “When you get home, change the bandages.”

“Here we go, Iwa-chan acting like my mom again.” The loose mention of his mother makes him grind his molars. He turns the action into a smile. Hajime cares more than she does anyway.

“Shut up,” Hajime huffs. He nudges Tooru’s ankle with the tip of his shoe. “Come on, coach asked me to close the gym up, and I promised to help Mari with her volleyball practice.”

“Can I come?”

“Okay. Just don’t move around too much. She’s aiming to be a setter, anyway.”

“Well, I’d be perfect help, then,” he says. Tooru stands up—winces—gives his feet a shake. The insides of his shoes are damp.

***

“Where’s your sister?” Hajime’s face is hidden by the door jamb, his upper body curved into the bedroom.

“I don’t know,” a tiny voice responds, timid and young. “Did you check her room? Can I see Oikawa-san now?”

“I—” Hajime’s voice cracks and stops mid-sentence. He does this when he realizes he’s done something dumb. “I should do that. And no.”

A mixture of childish giggles and whines follow behind him as Hajime parts from Aiko’s bedroom, his head shaking fondly at the amusement of his youngest sister. Tooru is draped over the couch, arms folded on the top of it.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Hajime grumbles when he passes by, stepping over to the door by the living room. “Why’d you even come if all you’re doing to do is make fun of me.”

“I haven’t even said a word, Iwa-chan!”

“You don’t have to.”

Hajime’s accusation is further defended by Tooru’s laughter. “What! It’s not my fault your sister is in love with me.”

“She’s seven, you annoying piece of shit!” Hajime growls, shooting Tooru a scowl. Almost immediately, his scolding tone vanishes and fizzles into something soft and sweet. “Mari? Are you in there?”

It’s silent until shuffling surfaces and the door swings open. “What, nii-san,” groans a freshly-awoken fifteen-year-old girl, her messy hair a mass of thick brown bristles, cadence similar to her older brother’s. Tooru watches as Hajime scrubs a hand through her hair, eliciting a complaint.

“Morning, sleepy-head,” Hajime snorts. It’s six in the evening. “Didn’t you say you wanted to practice today?”

“Shit, yeah. Backyard?”

“Yep.”

The quiet returns and Mari grabs her brother by the shoulders, shoving him down and peeking her head over him. She and Tooru make direct eye contact; Mari glowers, Tooru grins.

“Why is he here?”

“You wanted to learn to set, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but not from him!”

“I get it, but...”

Conveniently, Tooru is tuned out of their conversation when something tugs at his sleeve. He swivels around from his spot on the couch and is met with Aiko sitting beside him with her legs crossed politely.

“My favourite Iwaizumi! Hi, Ai-chan,” Tooru muses, humouring her. She smiles, wide with missing teeth, and holds out a piece of paper.

The age difference he and Aiko have, along with Hajime and Aiko, is the same amount of years between him and his own sister. With Tooru, Nyoko was never as involved. Tooru had been there when Aiko was first born, when Hajime became an older brother for the second time. He watched as he cooked and fed her when his mother was out at work. He watched Hajime care for her, for both his sisters, and a selfish part of him wished— _wishes_ —Nyoko was like that for him.

“I drew this,” Aiko chirps, shoving the paper into his lap. He plucks it up with delicate hands, fawning over her drawing with wide eyes. On the sheet is a messily drawn portrait of he and Aiko holding hands, pink hearts scrawled around them. Hajime is going to bang his head against a wall.

“How beautiful,” Tooru coos, patting her head. He subconsciously compares her head of curly locks to Takeru’s buzzed hair. “Thank you, Ai-chan. I love it very much. Can I show it to your brother?”

An instant squeal takes Tooru off guard, “No!”

“Alright, then,” he chuckles. “I have to go help your brother and sister play volleyball now, okay?”

By the time Tooru is able to part himself from Aiko’s infantile babbling, the volleyball net is already set up in the backyard. It stands grandly in the middle of the yard, dividing it into two equal courts. The sun is on the brink of setting. Hajime and Mari sit on the deck, basking in the warmth. Their tanned skin glows. Mari’s disheveled hair is now tamed in a low braid; Tooru assumes Hajime had styled it. The thought makes him feel fuzzy, warmer than the heat radiating from the sunset.

“Mari-chan! Iwa-chan! Are we ready to play?” Tooru chimes, skipping over to them. He plants his palms onto his knees and bends over to reach their crouched heights. Hajime flicks him on the forehead with his pointer finger.

“Can you not call me that?” Mari complains, readjusting her headband.

“Why not? It’s cute!”

“It’s not.” She rises to her feet and shoves past him, traipsing over to one side of the court. Grass crunches beneath her sneakers.

“What’s up with her?” Tooru whispers to Hajime while they trail behind her, a volleyball under each of their arms.

“You’re being annoying,” Hajime responds honestly, calm expression unmoving.

“It certainly can’t be that. She’s disliked me forever. All I’ve been is nice to her.” Tooru hides the genuine paranoia under a lame grin.

“Just...” Hajime pinches his lips to a corner of his mouth, thoughtful, “let her, I guess. It’s doing no harm to you, okay? She’s a teenager.”

“We’re teenagers too, Iwa-chan.”

“Don’t be smart with me.”

“Fine, I’ll play dumb just for you.”

They set down three of the volleyballs and approach Mari with one. Mari first tosses the balls to Tooru when he conducts a demonstration. His thumbs and pointer fingers come together and his palms face the sky. He keeps his posture straight and his eyes on the ball. When the ball drops into his hands, his fingers absorb the ball’s momentum and expel it as he directs it towards Hajime. Hajime leaps and smacks the ball into the opposing court. The ball bounces once then rolls in the grass. His feet hurt a little less.

“You have to suck in the power the ball has when it comes towards you. Let your fingers swallow the energy, then fling it out.”

Moonlight has replaced the sun when the three of them decide to call it quits. Mari has now immunized herself to Tooru’s quips and comments because of how encouraging and genuinely helpful he had been. Mari is tall and lithe like Tooru but fierce and powerful like her brother; Tooru was only able to make one joke about Hajime being shorter than his little sister before he threw a volleyball at his head.

The volleyball ricochets off of Tooru’s head and lands in his backyard over the fence; Tooru is hit with a wave of déjà vu. He tells them, after whining about their laughter at him, that he’ll retrieve the ball, even though it was stupid Iwa-chan’s fault. When he moves the wooden board that gated his and Hajime’s secret door from years ago and steps into it, he has to stop, because he no longer fits into the space. He retracts his body and returns the board, simply using the back door despite the sinking feeling in his stomach.

***

Taking care of his nephew was a job bestowed upon Tooru the day Takeru was born. Nyoko had never been married and the kid’s father was no longer present, so by proxy, Tooru was the closest thing to one. He never minded, really, because he likes Takeru and Takeru looks up to him; it made Tooru cry when he first told him he was his hero.

“Is there any more pineapple?” Takeru says from his beanbag by the television, watching his favourite cartoon intently. He snacks on some sliced fruit Tooru had prepared. Tooru lounges on the couch behind his nephew, loosely paying attention to the show. When he’s older, he and Hajime are planning to show him the Godzilla movies.

“Nyoko, is there any more pineapple?” Tooru asks his sister, enhancing Takeru’s question.

She glances at the counter and nods. “Yeah, but you have to cut it. I’m busy.”

With a theatrical groan, Tooru departs from his comfortable spot on the sofa and trudges into the kitchen. He is immediately hit with the smell of yakisoba; his stomach grumbles.

“That smells good,” Tooru hums as he grabs a cutting board, a knife, and the pineapple.

“It would smell better if you and Takeru could handle your spices.”

“Don’t compare me to a six-year-old!”

“You have the taste buds of one!”

“Mean!”

Tooru leaves it at that and Nyoko snickers proudly to herself. They work on their according meals, Tooru paring the skin of the pineapple and Nyoko frying the noodles. The knife in Tooru’s hand is light as he slices the fruit, discarding the peel and the leaves as he cuts. He cuts the pineapple into discs, then into triangular chunks, stealing a couple and popping them into his mouth before tossing them all into a container for Takeru. The pineapple is tangy on his tongue, bursting with sweet juice as he chews on it. It reminds him of summer.

“Takeru wants to play volleyball when he’s older because of you,” Nyoko says after Tooru delivers the fruit to Takeru and returns to the kitchen to pester his sister.

A bolt of pride and confidence strikes Tooru in the chest, leaving a warm feeling beneath his skin that trails all the way up to his cheeks. He turns to glimpse wistfully at Takeru while grabbing a tangerine from the fruit bowl. “Really?” he starts, on the verge of tears. “What position does he want to play?”

“I don’t know, he’s six.”

“Since he wants to be like me, I’ll say setter, then. If he decides to be a wing spiker I’ll seriously call that kid a traitor. But I’ll get Iwa-chan to help anyway.”

Nyoko turns down the heat of the stove and narrows her gaze; Tooru can spot her squint from the corner of his eye. “Does mom know you still hang out with him?”

“I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I go to school with him, it’s not like he’s going away. Mom can’t take Iwa-chan away from me. He’s been my best friend longer than dad has been in my life.”

There’s a strain that enters the air between them; an unspoken warning from Nyoko, a silent retaliation from Tooru. Nyoko scoops yakisoba into bowls while Tooru angrily peels a tangerine. That evening, they eat quietly.

***

On the night his parents decided to separate, his father had broken a glass. Tooru had just turned thirteen and Nyoko’s son had just turned two. All five of the Oikawas sat at the dinner table for supper—a ritual, the only thing that kept their family forcibly glued together.

“What? Is my cooking that bad?” his mother had scoffed, pointing her chopsticks in his father’s direction, the tips of them circling his untouched plate.

“I told you, I’m not hungry.” His father stared piercingly at her. Tooru tore his gaze away from them, shifting uncomfortably in his chair to face Takeru. His cheeks had been covered in rice. Nyoko hand-picked each grain and discarded them on a napkin.

“So you’re never hungry anymore? This is the second week in a row where you’ve refused to eat my cooking.” There’d been a fury behind his mother’s eyes, knowing and inculpating. His father remained still. “You come home late every day and we have to wait for you to have dinner.”

“You don’t need to wait for me to have dinner.”

“Is that the case? You don’t even want to eat with your family anymore?”

The thing is, Tooru, not then, not now, could not recall a time where he wholeheartedly enjoyed having dinner with his family. There must have been times, he’d figured, but they’re all muddled up in the mush of memories lingering in the back of Tooru’s skull, like sunken crumbs at the bottom of broth that hasn’t been stirred for awhile. It’s gross and days old and the only option left for that dish is to throw it out.

“You again, putting words in my mouth.”

Nyoko had felt the unspoken cue, scooping Takeru up in her arms without a word before exiting the kitchen. Tooru watched as she departed, fists clenched underneath the tabletop. He had wanted to leave, too, but he was stuck.

“Okay,” his mother had set down her chopsticks and straightened her back. She turned to Tooru. “Do you know what your father has been doing for the past two weeks? Months, even?”

This was it, Tooru had thought, his mother disassociating herself with her own husband, refusing to call him hers, entitling him solely to his child now. That was all he was to her, Tooru’s father. “He’s been at work in Sendai.”

“Is that what you’re telling him, Hiroshi?”

“Yes. Because that’s what I’ve been doing.”

A circuit had broken within his mother at that phrase. She had risen to her feet, flinging her chair back a foot, and slapped her hands on the table. Tooru winced. She hates liars.

“Do you think I’m that easy to fool? You work an hour away and manage to twist it into five.”

“Are you keeping tabs on me?”

“You’re lying to me!”

Tooru had frozen in his spot, jaw clenched tight and eyes locked onto a stray carrot that had spilled onto the table. His parents' voices had been deduced to white noise, background music, and he couldn’t remember the last time it had been quiet in his house. That’s all it is to him anyway, a house, and nothing else.

“Tell me her name! What is it, Hiroshi?”

His father had responded by grabbing a glass and chucking it onto the floor. The echoing ring of the debris silenced them; it made Tooru miss the noise. His mother had stormed into her bedroom after his father grabbed his coat and left. Tooru never did find out her name, if there even was one to begin with.

***

His father’s blue Subaru is something Tooru spends more time in than his own house. It smells of leather conditioner and has a ribbon tied to the driver’s handlebar right above the window. Tooru had given him that ribbon when he was six and he never removed it.

The music playing on the car radio is void of any lyrics, merely a symphony of instruments composing a jazz song similar to something that’d play in an elevator. Relaxing yet irritating is how Tooru would put it. He stares outside the window with his cheek in his hand, watching the city zoom past him in a blur. The sunset plants orange kisses upon his cheekbones.

“Do you want to go out to eat first?”

Tooru’s eyes trail over to glance at his father from his peripherals. “I could go for something light. I already ate with Iwa-chan.”

“Oh. Okay.”

From here, Tooru can feel the awkward shift in his father’s jaw. He shrugs and returns his gaze to the cityscape.

“How is he doing?”

A gear whirs in Tooru’s mind and the hand his cheek is resting against twitches. “He’s good. I played volleyball with him and Mari two weeks ago. She’s getting good, but you know, I expected that since I was her mentor. I think we’re playing again sometime soon.”

“That’s nice. I don’t remember what she looks like.”

“Hm. She looks a lot like Iwa-chan. Her hair’s longer, though. And she’s taller.” Tooru has to bite down on his bottom lip to keep himself from grinning. “She’s grumpier, though, which is impossible. Or she just doesn’t like me.”

The streetlight goes red; the car stops briefly. “Ah. Maybe she _likes_ you. Maybe she’s just shy.” Tooru can feel the stupid smirk on his father’s face, he knows the exact look because he’s worn the same one.

“No. She genuinely doesn’t like me. Iwa-chan won’t even tell me why. You know he tells me everything.” But Tooru can’t help but think about the possibility. It’s... a strange thing to think about. But maybe then, if he dated someone his mother liked so much, he could finally feel comfortable in his own house. The thought makes his guts drop into the soles of his feet.

“But she’s nice, right?” Green light. The engine rumbles beneath his feet. The car rolls.

“Well, figuratively. She’s not nice to me. But she’s nice from what I hear. A little bit like Iwa-chan, I think.” Subconsciously, Tooru tips his head further away from his father’s vision. Something warm spreads across his cheeks. “I mean, Iwa-chan’s nice to me all the time, he just hides it under being grumpy. Mari’s just a grump. But she’s fifteen, I was the same at her age.”

“You love talking about Hajime, don’t you?”

Tooru’s chest tightens and he has no clue why. He straightens his back and turns to face his father. His brow quirks anxiously and his lips flatten into a thin line. “He’s my best friend,” Tooru begins, pushing down a tremble. “Of course I like talking about him. That’s all.”

His father says nothing in response. The silence swallows Tooru up while darkness engulfs the sky above. He feels like the atmospheric shift from orange to black, except he possesses no stars.

***

Hajime’s voice rings with the bell above the door of the convenience store by the school. He says something unintelligible to the store clerk while stepping out of the building. In his hands is a can of melon soda and a can of coffee. His bag hangs over one shoulder, wrinkling the fabric of his school uniform. The jacket is draped over his bag and the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled above his forearms. Relaxed is what Tooru would call his appearance.

“Here,” Hajime mutters as he takes a seat beside Tooru on the ledge of the sidewalk. Their legs bump when he sits down.

“Mm, thank you.” Tooru takes the soda and happily cracks it open, bringing the can up to his ear to listen to the bubbles. He relishes in the satisfying noise for a couple of beats before taking a sip. He hums, quenched and content.

The sound of a second can being cracked open occupies the vicinity. Hajime instantly tips the coffee into his mouth and sighs. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.

They sit under the afternoon sun and wallow in the comfortable silence of each other’s presences. The sky is bright and blue and cloudless, sunlight filtering through the trees and casting yellow-tinted patches upon their bodies. It’s quiet aside from the breeze and the birds and the buzz of the convenience store’s sign, the name of the shop written in blocky neon above the door. They bicker about why the sign is turned on during the day. They finish their drinks and Tooru hands Hajime his can for him to crush under his shoe.

“That was easier than last time,” Hajime says, throwing the crushed cans in the garbage bin.

“You’re going to ruin your shoes doing that one day,” Tooru responds casually. He examines his nails and frowns when he spots a crack. He’ll have to file them later so he doesn’t bleed when he sets a volleyball.

“Sure I will.” Folding his arms over his chest, Hajime returns to his spot beside Tooru. A biker rides past them in a whim, both of their heads turning to trail after her.

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru calls, head still facing the direction of the biker. The red bike shrinks as it descends over the hill. It is minimized into a tiny dot until it vanishes around the corner. “If you weren’t doing volleyball now, what’d you be doing?”

He hears Hajime shift positions, assuming he’s uncrossed his arms and leaned back on his hands. Tooru takes a glance at him and quirks a brow when he guesses correctly.

“I don’t know,” Hajime answers, head tipped backwards. He stares at whatever it is in the sky that has gotten his attention. Tooru’s attention is on the crinkles by Hajime’s eyes when he squints.

“Do I have to list out other sports? Did you forget them all?” Tooru jokes, resting his cheek on his knee. He wraps his arms around his legs.

“No,” Hajime snickers, lightly punching Tooru’s arm. “I guess I really haven’t thought about anything outside of doing volleyball. All I want to do is get better at it.”

“You didn’t even answer my question.”

“What would _you_ do if you weren’t doing volleyball?”

With a fond roll of his eyes, Tooru clicks his tongue then shuts his eyes to think. His own question is baffling, but he’d never admit that. He wants to say that perhaps he’ll focus on his studies and delve more into astronomy. But then he realizes, where would Hajime fit into that?

“Eh, soccer. Basketball. I think I could be good at either of those.”

Hajime is sitting straight now, hands in his lap. “Then I’d do soccer or basketball, too. Whichever you end up choosing.”

 _I’d follow you anywhere,_ is all Tooru is able to hear.

***

Summer and Hajime are two things that seem to coincide. It had been summer when they met, and Tooru associates every bit of that season with him. Tanned skin, sweet pineapple, fireflies, warm nights—to Tooru, those are all synonyms for Hajime.

During the short period when Hajime was fourteen and Tooru was thirteen, there’d been a time where their shared obsession had been sneaking off late at night when their mothers and sisters were asleep to a little clearing by the lake at the park. Tooru had claimed that the ambiance of nighttime was different than when it was daylight, and Hajime didn’t disagree because then he could see the fireflies he admired so much.

To reach the clearing, they’d needed to squeeze through a small path hidden within an archway of overgrown flora. They’d been able to fit easier when they were younger, but Hajime kept getting taller and his shoulders were widening even if Tooru hadn’t hit that point yet. He’d sworn to Hajime that he’d be taller than him one day.

Then, with Hajime leading the way and Tooru scrambling behind him, he’d grabbed his hand in order to steady himself from the uneven terrain beneath his shoes. Hajime hadn’t recoiled, so Tooru held him tightly and curiously wondered why his stomach felt light.

When they’d arrived in the clearing, a patch of dirt big enough for the two of them to sit in with their legs spread, Tooru kept their hands clasped. They’d both taken seats, after Tooru complained about the dirt staining his shorts, tucked together under an umbrella of vines and branches and leaves. Tooru had kept his eyes fixated on their hands, Hajime’s calloused fingers intertwined with his own knobby ones. The contrast between his rosy sunburnt complexion and Hajime’s golden tan felt right. He couldn’t imagine any other hand in his.

A perfect puzzle piece is what Hajime was for Tooru. His pillar, the only person who’d truly ever fully understand him. He’d always thought it was because they were best friends.

But Tooru had felt different. Under the shelter of the clearing and the blanket of stars above, Tooru’s heartbeat had been faster than usual. It was loud enough for aliens to hear, he’d thought. Tooru knew this was different because when they were kids they held hands and embraced whenever the hell they wanted. Tooru couldn’t recall feeling a fluttering sensation in his stomach, or a tightness in his chest, or a rush of warmth in his cheeks whenever Hajime glanced at him.

Nervously, he’d pulled his hand from Hajime’s. “My hand was getting sweaty,” Tooru had excused before Hajime could even ask.

“Oh,” had been Hajime’s simple answer.

Hajime hadn’t prodded further and Tooru was immensely thankful for that. Hajime had never been stubborn or annoying like he was, so the passivity was something he should’ve expected. But for some reason, Tooru hadn’t been able to think without his thoughts turning to mush.

“I should’ve brought a jar,” Hajime had mumbled to himself while bent over the shore of the lake, crouched on his hands and knees. Tooru couldn’t help but stare at the way Hajime’s arms flexed whenever they moved, frustratingly on display under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt; he’d run out of tank tops to wear so he had to improvise. At that angle all Tooru had been able to see of Hajime’s face was his profile, a slowly sharpening jaw and his hooked nose tipped downwards as his eyes wandered across the lake. Normally, Tooru would’ve followed Hajime’s eyes to wherever he was looking. But Tooru couldn’t take his eyes off Hajime.

 _Handsome,_ was what Tooru had finally been able to rack up in his jumble of thoughts. It’d been an idle thought that appeared as he watched Hajime dig his fingers into the mud and later wash them in the lake, his calm features lit by the moonlight. It’d been a profound thought when Hajime sat back on his calves and stood still, tipping his head upwards to look at the sky. His neck had been smooth. Tooru’s fingers had been gripping the fabric of his shorts to the point where they wrinkled obviously.

Tooru had known Hajime for years and before that night nothing struck him as strange. Hajime had been his best friend for as long as he could remember and his thoughts were never weird. He’d never thought of Hajime’s arms or hands in a way that made him blush. It was a new feeling to Tooru, a feeling he wanted gone. It was as gross and as murky as the middle of the lake had been. The only thing he was able to compare this feeling to was whenever he saw a pretty girl. Now, that was normal. He’d known this because his father must’ve felt that way towards his mother once, even though they hated each other so much; he’d pondered if they hated each other before or after he had been born. That thought had been quickly shut down because he knew he didn’t hate Hajime like his parents did each other. He would never hate Hajime. The thought of hating Hajime was a feeling more foreign than the swell of fluttering emotions that’d overcame him that night. It was just a means of either choosing to allow those fluttering emotions to fly or burying them deep into the dirt so that their wings could never work.

***

Tooru is in solitude while he practices in the gym. The court is completely vacant, the lights overhead reflecting upon the polished wood floors. One net stands to occupy one player.

The volleyball is feather-like in his palms; familiar, a weight so well known that his hands feel as if they’re melded to the shell of leather that panels its circumference. He stands on one end of the court, inhaling when he twirls the ball in his hands. It spins with a hollow sound, music to his ears. He jogs backwards to a point permanently ingrained in his system, an invisible spot marked into the gym floor, then tosses the ball into the air. He takes exactly five steady strides before leaping into the air and swinging his right arm up, allowing his palm to collide with the ball. It connects and thunders into the opposing court. It lands within the white lines that gate the court and rolls until it hits the wall. Tooru grabs another ball.

Spin. Five steps backwards. Toss. Five strides forwards. Leap. Connect. Spin. Five steps backwards. Toss. Five strides forwards. Leap. Connect. Spin.

He repeats the process again and again. He serves until his palms burn and his legs ache.

Tooru’s knees buckle and hit the floor, the only thing protecting them from an extra jolt of pain being a measly kneepad and his irritating leg brace. He props himself up with his hands, his shoulders rising and falling with his desperate breaths. Tooru looks across the court, the floor covered in dozens of volleyballs, a perilous ocean of blue and yellow. No matter how hard he tries, he always ends up drowning.

***

After classes one day, the third years have dinner at the ramen joint near Takahiro’s neighbourhood. They’ve been there multiple times, enough for the waiters to know their usuals. It’s delicious food for an affordable price; none of them ever complain.

“Thank you for the food!” they all cheer in sync when Hajime’s ramen finally arrives. Takahiro first digs into his karaage chicken; he says it gets soggy if left out too long. Issei pokes at an egg in his bowl and allows the yolk to bleed into the soup; he stirs it all together and shovels the noodles into his mouth. Tooru blows ridiculously hard at his soup, it almost splattering everywhere, before taking a sip once it has cooled down. Hajime adds a little bit of extra pepper into his noodles before taking a hefty bite.

At their first bites, they all let out a satisfied hum.

“I could eat this shit until I die,” Issei says after swallowing. Takahiro reaches his hand over to wipe away a mince of green onion tacked to the corner of his mouth. None of them comment on it.

Takahiro snorts. “At this rate, we’ll all be coming here until we’re all fat and old.”

“Correction,” Tooru sneers. “I’m going to be sexy and old with salt-and-pepper hair and a fantastic body.”

Hajime chokes on his soup and sputters a series of coughs. Issei guffaws and Tooru’s mouth gapes, offended.

“Please don’t kill him now, oh my god. He’s gonna have to see that sexy old body of yours and suffer. Let him die then,” says Takahiro, munching on his chicken.

“Wh—” Tooru blubbers, processing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Hajime raises his brows and pads at his mouth with a napkin.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” announces Hajime before leaving. Issei and Takahiro exchange looks.

“When you’re _old and sexy_ it’s gonna be you, your wife, and Iwaizumi,” Issei says with far too much aloofness, exaggerating with a shrug.

Tooru snaps his fingers. “Hello? That still doesn’t explain anything.”

“Oikawa,” Takahiro starts. “Hajime’s been around more than all your girlfriends combined. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that you like him more than you ever liked them.”

The grip Tooru has around his chopsticks subconsciously tightens along with his jaw. He feels as if he’s been caught despite a lack of accusation from both Takahiro and Issei. He drops his chopsticks and bats his hand flippantly.

“No way,” Tooru scoffs with a feigned grin. “If I liked him so much, don’t you think I’d be dating him? I’m not even... I don’t like boys.”

Saying that out loud leaves a bitter taste in Tooru’s mouth. The statement is true, he keeps telling himself in his head, shoving it down his own throat until he swallows it and digests it. He eats it up even though it tastes repulsive and makes him want to cry.

“We didn’t—”

“Sorry I took so long, the soup got all over my shirt. What are we talking about?”

Hajime’s sudden presence wraps Tooru up like a boa constrictor; a hold that torments him, tightening with every second that passes by. It’s funny how Hajime suffocates and breathes air into him at the same time. He doesn’t even know.

“Iwaizumi,” Takahiro says, doing a terrible job of hiding the surprise on his face.

Issei clears his throat. “We were just telling Oikawa about the party at my place next week. Because my parents are out of town.”

“Yeah!” Tooru offers, his excitement genuine. “Can’t wait. When is it again?”

“Saturday. You coming, Iwaizumi?”

“Yeah, why not.”

They resume eating their meals, neither of them bringing up the stupid conversation from before. The entire time they ate, Tooru kept his eyes from Hajime’s. He never realized how hard it was not to look at him until he tried.

***

It had been Tooru who offered Hajime his first taste of alcohol when they were fifteen and sitting on the plastic bridge between the slide and the monkey bars at the playground in their neighbourhood. Tooru’s girlfriend at the time had dumped him earlier that day, and he was feeling awfully dramatic. He’d snuck into his sister’s stash of beer, hidden under her bed behind her jewelry box. Scattered around them were the cans of beer, just enough to get them drunk.

Tooru was in that awkward stage of puberty where his limbs were long and gangly and his voice was pitchy. His boyish features had finally begun making him appear more handsome than cute as his jaw sharpened and cheekbones became more defined. He had also been hit with a growth spurt, finally outgrowing Hajime in height. Tooru would constantly make jokes about it, but it was an inexplicably strange thing to look down at Hajime instead of up.

“This is seriously so gross,” Hajime had said around the rim of the beer can, timidly tipping the drink into his mouth. He took a sip and visibly cringed.

“You’re still drinking it!” Tooru had chirped with a hiccup, eagerly taking a long swing of his beer. “Besides, you like coffee, Iwa-chan. That’s even grosser.”

“Coffee tastes good.”

“No it doesn’t. It’s so bitter.”

“Beer is even more bitter.”

“But coffee doesn’t give me a buzz.”

“Oikawa, that’s what caffeine does.”

The summer sky and the empty playground had been their audience for the night, mercilessly subjected to their endless bickering. They’d been going back and forth like that for years. Tooru couldn’t remember a time where he didn’t have Hajime to talk to. It was easy, with Hajime. Everything was easy with him.

Fireflies were finally returning, blinking through the air like tiny streetlights. They were Hajime’s favourite type of bug; even then, at fifteen, he found them as fascinating as he did when he was a kid. Tooru watched as Hajime’s attention shifted to a firefly that had landed on one of their cans of beers. He’d looked at it with astonishment in his eyes, a lazy grin splayed upon his lips. Hajime’s smiles always made Tooru’s heart beat a little faster.

“Hana’s such a jerk,” Tooru had slurred. His can of beer clinked against the plastic as he plunked it down carelessly, nearly knocking it over the bridge and into the wood chips below. “I can’t believe she broke up with me. She was the one who confessed in the first place! That’s so unfair.”

“Maybe she finally saw your shitty personality.” Hajime hadn’t taken his eyes off of the firefly. He stuck his finger out for it to climb on.

“Mean, Iwa-chan.” Tooru cracked open another can. “I know you don’t mean that. If you did, you would’ve left years ago.”

The firefly flew away as Hajime tugged his arm back, turning to face Tooru. Their knees bumped and Tooru tucked his leg under Hajime’s and allowed his foot to rest behind him. Hajime’s calf draped over Tooru’s thigh, brown against porcelain. The smile on his face had disappeared; all Tooru thought about at that moment was how he could possibly bring it back.

“You’re right,” Hajime had sighed, downing the rest of his beer and setting the can aside once done. “So what was it, then? Did she tell you that you‘re too invested in volleyball? Didn’t Haruka say that too?”

“Don’t mention her name!” Kishibe Haruka, Tooru’s girlfriend before Hana; a sweet girl who’d been roped into Tooru’s obsessive behaviour over volleyball and realized he loved the sport more than her. “But, no.”

“She say you’re a bad kisser?”

“Iwa-chan!” An embarrassing blush had spread over Tooru’s cheeks, and he knew damn well it wasn’t because of the alcohol. “No! What the hell! It’s not like you can say anything about that. You’ve never kissed anyone.”

And at that, Hajime had been rendered silent. It wasn’t necessarily a topic commonly brought up, albeit if it was, it was usually from Tooru’s perspective and about the girls he’d kissed. Hajime never contributed past a nod or a grunt. They sat quietly as crickets spoke for them.

“So what if I still haven’t,” Hajime had finally murmured after an unbearably long beat.

“Oh,” Tooru had said, softly. “Hm.”

“ _Hm_ what?”

“Then you just need practice.”

Tooru saw the colour draining from Hajime’s face and if he hadn’t been just as anxious he would’ve been teasing him. He unlinked their legs from one another and tucked his calves under himself and sat on his knees.

Hajime gulped. “And how am I supposed to do that? I’m not kissing my pillow like a loser when I get home.”

“Put your hand over your mouth.”

There’d been no vocal retaliation from Hajime. His eyes widened and he furrowed his brows in confusion but the defiance on Tooru’s face didn’t falter. So, slowly, Hajime had brought his hand up to his face and cupped it over his mouth.

Wordlessly, despite the screaming voice—which had sounded eerily like his own—in the back of his head telling him to stop, Tooru leaned forward in the spot between the V of Hajime’s legs. His hands were planted on either side of his thighs as he careened himself closer to Hajime. From there he had been able to spot the beads of sweat nestled in the divot of his collarbones; the pale sprinkling of freckles that bloomed upon his tanned skin in the summer. Tooru connected his lips with the back of Hajime’s hand and kissed it.

He had felt Hajime’s breath hitch when he slotted his lips into the curves of his fingers. His lips moved fairly unpleasantly and he could taste the salt on Hajime’s fingers. One of his hands had travelled up to rest in the junction between his shoulder and neck, grasping at the fabric of his muscle tank. He gave the back of his hand one small lick before pulling away. It was the drink that made him do that, he’d tried to convince himself.

Their breaths were hot and tangible. Hajime dropped his hand and stared up at Tooru with alert, his cheeks rosy and chest heaving. Tooru sat back and without another noise he put his own hand over his mouth.

That time, Hajime crawled towards him and sat squarely with crossed legs. He grabbed Tooru’s face with both hands, cradling his head gently. His lips quivered.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hajime had admitted.

“I just showed you,” Tooru had responded, muffled. “You felt it, didn’t you?”

Hajime nodded. He had shut his eyes fiercely, his nose scrunching up with the action, which had been really cute, and pressed his lips to Tooru’s hand. Tooru swore the air in his lungs exited his body because all of a sudden he felt lightheaded and fuzzy. Against his hand he felt Hajime’s warm, chapped lips moving across his skin. He wasn’t sloppy, just timid. Tooru wasn’t able to formulate any thoughts or advice past that because he felt like he was going to black out if Hajime didn’t stop. He had thought to himself, _is this how Hajime felt when I kissed his hand?_ Tooru pushed Hajime back.

“I think you’ll be fine,” Tooru had said, breathless. Hajime still had his hands holding his face.

“Okay. Thanks, Oikawa.”

“No problem. This is what friends are for, right?”

“Yeah. Friends. Of course.”

They sat back in their positions, leaning nonchalantly against the bars of the bridge. Hajime returned his attention to another firefly that buzzed by, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lip. Tooru watched him, like he always did, and the only thing that had plagued his mind right then and there was the thought of how Hajime’s lips would feel against his own. That, no matter what he’d ever say, was not an afterthought from the drink.

***

The drink sloshing around in the red solo cup sitting in Tooru’s hand swirls hypnotically, a miniature whirlpool drowning him with every intoxicating drop. He takes another swig.

Drunkenness has not taken over Tooru yet. His tolerance for alcohol has grown over the years and he can confidently say that he can handle his liquor better than he did when he was fifteen and dumb—dumb _er._ He sits on Issei’s couch, simply observing the party around him, similarly to how he would before setting a volleyball. Scanning the room, profiling the company, pinpointing their weaknesses. There’s a girl standing in the hallway by the kitchen; she’s seemingly flirting with a man a head taller than her, he looks nothing but uninterested. Issei himself is being questionably touchy with Takahiro in the corner of the living room; Tooru sees them, they think they’re slick. He can’t help but listen to the music, enhanced in his ears, and want to scream. He hates this song.

Taking one long sip, Tooru finishes the drink and sets the solo cup onto the coffee table. He makes his way into the kitchen. The music seems to be sourced there, tile flooring vibrating beneath his feet. The boombox can be spotted on the counter by the sink; that’s a stupidly irresponsible place to put it. Bodies are scattered around here and there, dancing offbeat, chatting, or kissing. Tooru joins the ensemble when a girl he doesn’t care to know the name of drags him in by the arm.

“I’ve seen a couple of your games,” she says, placing her hands on his hips. She pulls him in, pressing their stomachs flesh. Tooru smirks unblinkingly.

“Have you, now? I’ve been told I offer quite a show.”

“Mhm. You’re really good.”

Not another word is exchanged before Tooru’s neck is tugged downwards and a pair of chalky lips meet his own. He doesn’t pull away, only humours her, settling his hands upon her waist and tilting his head for access. Her lipstick is bound to stain his mouth, an obnoxious red that does not suit her pale complexion whatsoever. Tooru thinks she looks like a ghoul, but she tastes decent, so he kisses her.

She’s clingy, to say the least. She grabs at Tooru’s shirt and grinds her body onto his and sticks her tongue down his throat. Tooru is appalled but he’s tired and he likes kissing, maybe not with her, but she’s what he has tonight. Her hands roam his arms and squeeze his biceps, it makes Tooru have to hold back a giggle; he’s ticklish there, but she wouldn’t know that. Hajime does, he found out when they were eleven.

Without breaking the kiss, Tooru awkwardly blinks his eyes open. His vision is fuzzy for a moment, curse him for forgetting his glasses and his contact lenses, though refocuses in a matter of seconds. The crowd has changed, but the song is just as aggravating. Nothing this girl does will silence it. He surveys the lot of people, gaze hopping from couple to friend group to lone wolf dancing happily on their own. The girl kisses and nips at the corner of his mouth. He returns the kiss to distract her from his open eyes.

His hands continue to satisfy her body by squeezing the meat of her waist lightly. She hums and latches her lips onto his neck, Tooru takes that as a sign of approval. He toys with his fingers and resumes monitoring the party when he spots him: leaned up against the fridge, hands that don’t belong to him exploring his body, lips on those familiar chapped ones, green eyes searing into his own. Hajime stares intensely at Tooru as he kisses this girl. Tooru has never seen her before and he never will again. She’s touching places of Hajime’s body that make him want to rip her arms off. The girl currently kissing Tooru is merely a blob of flesh. But Tooru grabs her face and tilts her head and attaches his lips to hers, never taking his eyes off Hajime’s. He kisses her roughly and even from here, with alcohol in his veins and his eyes aching to close, Tooru can spot the clench in Hajime’s jaw as he swipes his tongue over this girl’s bottom lip.

There isn’t a single thing left compelling Tooru to stay. If it were simply the team hanging out and getting wasted, this wouldn’t be the situation. But Tooru is here, despite being a renowned social butterfly, wanting to shrink into himself and pool at the floor, seeping into the grout. He tears his eyes away from Hajime and delicately pulls himself from the girl. He kisses her cheek and disappears into the living room. Issei and Takahiro are nowhere to be found, so he pulls out his phone to shoot them a quick text about leaving. His eyes linger upon Hajime’s contact name, but he angrily shoves his phone back into his pocket and storms through the party, the front door his destination.

This wasn’t fair. It was Tooru who taught Hajime how to kiss. It was Tooru who was the first to feel Hajime’s lips. He wonders if they’re still as chapped and as warm as he remembers. The bodies around him spit profanities as he pushes past them, desperate to breathe. He runs and the alcohol swishes through him and finally his hands hit the door. He grabs the knob and swings it open, practically throwing himself outside. Behind him the party is muted, stifled music and conversation taunting him. He balls his fists and fights the urge to punch himself. Tooru taught Hajime to kiss so he’d be ready for when the right girl came. A disgusting, envious part of him wishes that girl would never come.

***

“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?” his mother says, more so accuses. She sits at the kitchen table and spoons soup into her mouth. The morning sun peeks through the window and causes Tooru to squint begrudgingly.

“Sure,” Tooru grumbles. He presses his palms to the dark circles under his eyes and sighs. The traces of alcohol in his system have fizzled into a pounding migraine. Something else hurts more.

“Where were you?”

“Matsukawa’s.” He grabs a glass and fills it with tap water, chugging it.

“Who else was there?”

“Lots of people. I didn’t know all of them, but I’m sure Mattsun did.”

“Was Hajime there?”

Tooru pauses midway with the rim of the glass tipped into his mouth, eyes stuck staring at the distorted view of his sink through the remainder of the water sitting at the bottom of the cup. The image of Hajime kissing that girl taunts him. He gulps. “Yes, Hajime was there, because he’s friends with Mattsun and was invited.”

“I told you, you aren’t allowed to be around him.”

“We go to school together; we’re neighbours. It’s impossible to avoid him. I don’t know why you’re so mad about him, you liked him when we were kids.”

“Because that’s when you were innocent.” She’s turned away from him, staring blankly at the window while she eats her breakfast. Her burgundy hair is tied back in a low bun, revealing the firmness in her jaw.

“I was six years old, of course I was,” Tooru says calmly, training his voice to a levelled volume. If he had no self control, he would be screaming at the top of his lungs.

Tooru walks into conversations with his mother like a soldier prepared for battle. Talking to his mother is like parading through a minefield, safe on the terrain until a singular wrong step leads to an explosion. He can indeed speak to his mother normally, often chatting minimally with her throughout the day. He’d ask her how work was; she’d respond by telling him something dumb her coworkers at the hospital did that day. He’d ask if she was making dinner that night; she’d tell him no and he’d make his own food. It’s purely situational. Then on the occasion, Tooru would say something his mother disagrees with and they’d start yelling at each other like alley cats, clawing at one another, their flaws unveiling with every slash.

Right now, as Tooru puts the glass down, he makes the wrong step.

“Don’t talk back to me,” she begins after taking a bite. “I‘ve been telling you to stop being around him for months. It’s almost been a year. I let you be friends with him for a decade, you have to grow up.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tooru shoots back, and the moment he shuts his mouth, he wishes he never spoke.

“Your relationship with him doesn’t make any sense. You’re a seventeen-year-old boy and you... you talk about Hajime like he’s a girl.”

“I don’t do that,” Tooru says quietly, pathetically. He feels infinitesimal. “I don’t even talk about him around you.”

“You don’t need to talk about him around me for me to know. It’s wrong. I don’t want him ruining you.”

False perception is a struggle Tooru deals with willingly. He feigns a persona to protect himself from the inevitability of criticism. If somebody doesn’t like him, who is Tooru to judge? That isn’t really him. Underneath those spurious grins and flippant quips is a boy only his reflection sees. He keeps to himself. But Hajime, with every ounce of tenderness he has down to his marrow, is genuine. He is as grumpy and firm as he is considerate and sweet. He has no mask to hide behind. Hajime is unapologetically himself; he’d never ruin Tooru, not when he’s the only other person who’s ever seen his reflection.

“No,” Tooru says simply. The source of his headache is now his mother. “You don’t know him.”

“I just want what’s good for you.”

“I know what’s good for me, mom.”

Tooru yawns and pivots his hip, stretching his back. His mother says something more but Tooru decides not to listen. He walks past his mother at the dinner table and into the backyard. Soft blades of grass prick the soles of his bare feet. He takes a seat by the fence, resting his back against the wooden planks. A light breeze cools his skin and ruffles his hair. Their secret door is fully nailed down now, but Tooru knows he doesn’t need a stupid little opening in a fence anymore to reach Hajime.

***

Behind Tooru’s house is a railroad. The station nearby was where his father used to board the train to work when he still lived here. Every now and then, Tooru hears the rattling of the train roaring down the tracks. His bedroom window muffles it but it’s still loud. The train passes by and Tooru watches it until it disappears, its whistle resounding deeply as it goes. When it’s gone, Tooru texts Hajime to meet him on the tracks.

To Hajime and Tooru as kids, the train behind their houses was the coolest possible thing on earth. They’d watch it run down the tracks whenever they were able to catch it, squealing excitedly whenever the whistle blew. They’d walk the tracks when the train was confirmed gone, balancing along the metal rails and competing in a childish challenge of whoever could stay on the longest. One of them would fall and the other would laugh before taking the other’s hand and helping them up. They’d eat popsicles on the tracks. They’d pretend they were on a heist. They’d watch the sunset while Tooru talked Hajime’s ear off. They’d scream and run back home whenever they heard a train whistle in the distance. The railroad was one of their many spots, a place where Tooru and Hajime could be nothing but themselves together.

Tooru’s grown taller and he’s changed since he was a little kid but the railroad remains unmoved. There’s an opening in the metal fencing that separates the tracks from the neighbourhood and Tooru laughs at it because it’s still mangled after all these years. He has to be extra cautious of the metal wiring when he climbs through it because he isn’t small anymore and he doesn’t want to get impaled. When he draws closer the tracks, he feels as if he’s becoming more compact with every step he takes, shrinking in size the closer he gets. He has to hold his breath when he takes a step, expecting his foot to be tiny and in an extraterrestrial themed light-up shoe when it lands on the metal railing. But it’s normal sized and in his old pair of volleyball sneakers. He exhales.

The sun begins to set after Tooru makes a couple of rounds over the train tracks, tiptoeing across the rails with his hands shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker. His chestnut hair appears rosier in the warm hues of the sun, but not as red as that runt from Karasuno. They’ll be playing them in a while, he thinks indolently. They’ve played them and won before, Tooru’s sure they’ll be fine.

He takes a seat on the ledge of the track and crosses his arms over his knees. He nearly knocks all his teeth out over his fist when somebody’s shoes crunch the gravel behind him.

“What the fuck!” Tooru whines, cradling his own face.

“Sorry,” Hajime chuckles. He lowers himself onto the track beside Tooru. The space between them is too large.

“You could’ve said my name or warned me.”

“I texted you I was coming. It’s your fault you didn’t check.”

Scrunching his face up, Tooru retrieves his phone from his back pocket and turns it on. The screen illuminates and reveals text notifications from Hajime: “okay. coming over. is it cold?” and “look behind you.” Tooru puts his phone back into his jeans.

“It’s a little cold,” Tooru answers belatedly, a smug smile on his face.

Hajime scoffs, “It’s too late for that.”

The nausea swirling in Tooru’s stomach is begging to exit, and for a beat he considers reeling and belching all over the train tracks. He’s nervous, even with Hajime’s presence around. He should be calm around Hajime, yet all he wants to do is make the space between them wider.

“Was your hangover alright?” Hajime asks, timidly. He drags the heel of his shoe through the gravel, digging. He used to do that when he was a kid, except then he was looking for fossils in hopes of finding proof that monsters existed. He wouldn’t find proof of them in the dirt, Tooru wants to tell him now.

“That was two days ago, Iwa-chan,” Tooru hums. “It was fine. Was yours okay?”

“I didn’t drink.”

It’s rare that Tooru ever gets genuinely angry at Hajime. There’s nothing to be angry at when it comes to him, he’s always Tooru’s drink of water or snap back into reality. It’s Tooru who should be the one to receive the anger, the scolding whenever he practices for too long or says something annoying. But with the information that Hajime was kissing that girl completely sober, Tooru wants to explode.

“Ah,” Tooru breathes. “Then I’m guessing you had more fun than I did, right, Iwa-chan? I can barely remember what happened. That’s how much I drank.” His mother would despise his lies right now.

“It was okay, I guess. I stayed and helped Matsukawa clean up after it was over. Had to carry his dumb ass up to his bedroom and escort everyone else out because he blacked out before the party even ended. Makki refused to help me carry him.” There’s a fond smile on Hajime’s face and it extends to Tooru’s. Their friends are idiots.

The fleeting smiles they share dance around the elephant in the room. Tooru knows that Hajime knows he’s lying, and normally he’d let that slide but it’s the both of them who are contributing to the avoidance of the real conversation. It’s typical for Tooru to do this on his own, but when Hajime does it, there must be something wrong.

“What was her name?” Tooru asks plainly. He stares at the dimmest star in the darkening sky.

Hajime shifts awkwardly beside him. He clears his throat and says, sternly, “Chiharu.”

A grin tugs at Tooru’s lips. He smiles casually enough so that it doesn’t morph into a grimace. “Aw, Iwa-chan finally has a girlfriend, then? It’s been long enough. Is she pretty?”

“I’d say so,” Hajime mutters. “Her skin was really soft. I told her I wasn’t exactly interested when she tried giving me her number.”

The lump in Tooru’s throat expands and his palms begin to clam up. Tooru expects to be relieved, but that’s far from what he’s feeling. “Boo, your game is terrible.”

Hajime ignores his comment. “She told me it felt like I was kissing someone else.”

“Oh,” is all Tooru is able to articulate. His chest feels the way it used to when he heard the train whistle approaching, his ribcage buzzing with adrenaline and anxiety alike. The hope he has is far too big for his body. “Were you?”

Hajime is silent for a moment. He has stopped digging into the gravel with his shoes. The space between them is gone. Their shoulders bump. “Yeah,” he starts, “I think so.”

***

Seijoh loses the spring high semifinals to Karasuno. Tooru disappoints his team for the last time. Tooru disappoints Hajime for the millionth time, he thinks. Tooru disappoints himself, too, which he is the least upset about. He’s far too used to doing that. He’s immune.

Despite the contradicting number on his volleyball jersey, Tooru has always been, and is convinced that he’ll forever be, second.

***

There’s a statue at the park by Tooru’s house that had appeared out of nowhere. A patch of grass amongst the meadow was what was there before, now excavated and replaced with a slab of stone. The statue sits upon a bench, a replica of the other benches scattered across the park. Two copper figures glint in the sunlight, their limbs sculpted together and faces an empty canvas. They somewhat mimic passersby that frequent the park to sit and chat at benches with their companions. Although to Tooru it’s strange, how its creator opted to sculpt them faceless.

“When’d this thing even get here?” Tooru glares pointedly at the statue. He frowns at it, the figures’ hands interlaced and shoulders fused. Their heads are leaned against one another; there isn’t a part of them that isn’t connected.

“It’s always been here,” says Nyoko nonchalantly, tapping at her phone from the bench she sits at. “Mom hates it.”

“Like I would’ve known that,” Tooru murmurs. He yawns. “That’s not possible, I swear there was just grass here. I would’ve noticed a giant statue.”

“What am I gonna say? _Wow, Tooru! Actually, you’re right, this statue built into the goddamn concrete was actually never here! I’m Tooru and I’m always right!”_ Nyoko’s expression twists into something smug when Tooru whips his head around to glare at her, eyes narrowed and pout irritatingly exaggerated. She’s always had an impressive—he’d call it offensive—impersonation of him, getting that nasally twang just right. It’s because they’re siblings, he always tells himself. But their voices are another thing they don’t share.

Turning back to the statue, Tooru scans it with scrutiny. The edges of it are caked in deep teal, the stark colour running along the figures in veins, emerald blood across bronze. A couple of straggling leaves from the trees overhead have been caught in the nooks of the statue, sprinkling the bench in autumnal decor. It only makes the statue appear more ancient. He thinks about what his sister had said, now, going cross-eyed at the thought of her being right for the millionth time in her life. The green patches on the statue scream at him, informing him of its old age. Oxidation—the copper has been exposed for years, to heavy rain and numbing snow, freezing and thawing and freezing again for decades to come. It’s been here a while; Tooru just doesn’t want to admit it.

Nyoko is still lounged on the bench opposite the statue, facing it. She has put her phone away, leaning forward with her elbows perched atop her knees, simply looking at the statue with an unreadable emotion. Tooru knows she’s thinking, too. He takes a seat on the bench with his sister, sitting distantly from her, their forms an antithesis of the statue.

***

With a bouquet of freshly picked flowers from the field by the gym held tightly in his small hand, a little twelve-year-old Tooru paraded into Suzuki Emiko’s classroom at lunch to profess his undying love for her. He waddled up to her with bravado and stuck the flowers out above her desk where she sat, several leaves falling onto the wooden surface at the sheer ferocity of his action.

“Suzuki Emiko,” Tooru had started, flashing a grin. “I really like you. These flowers are pretty and I think you’re pretty so I thought I’d give them to you as a present because you match. Will you be my girlfriend?”

Shocked, Emiko had stared at him with her eyes as wide as the moon. Her cheeks had been entirely red, but she smiled at Tooru anyway and nodded.

“Okay! I like you too!” had been her answer, and her dark hair bobbed when she stood up from her seat and leaned over the desk to give Tooru a chaste kiss on the cheek.

As childish as a relationship between two twelve-year-olds can be, Emiko wasn’t a terrible first girlfriend. In return, Tooru was the best boyfriend he could’ve possibly been. They had never really endeavoured on romantic escapades, them still being clueless kids, but the time they’d spent together was nice. Tooru had walked her to class on the occasion and called her Emikkun. Emiko had gushed about Tooru to her friends and blushed whenever he passed by her friend group. By Tooru’s standards, Emiko was great. But there’d been, and there still is, someone greater.

“Iwa-chan!” Tooru had yelled to catch Hajime’s attention. From where he was standing at the front of the school, Hajime whispered something to the two boys he’d been talking to before heading towards Tooru. They met in the middle, at the sidewalk near the fencing of the outdoor basketball court.

“Stop shouting! Especially that nickname!” Hajime had growled, frowning. His frown had disappeared when he spotted the wide grin on Tooru’s face—it’d been a smile that was genuine, a rare sight to see. “What is it?”

“I have a girlfriend now!” Tooru had stated, his demeanour dripping with pride. “I confessed to her last week and she’s awesome! I wanted to wait to tell you because if she broke up with me after a day then that would be embarrassing. But she didn’t, which is smart because I’m an amazing boyfriend and I’m pretty cute, aren’t I, Iwa-chan?”

Then, Hajime’s frown returned and he’d begun cracking his knuckles out of habit. Tooru had cringed at the sound. “Uh huh. Is that why you haven’t been eating lunch with me?”

“I’m really sorry about that, I promise it wasn’t on purpose. I just wanted to keep it a secret. But the secret’s out now and I asked her if my best friend Iwa-chan could come eat lunch with us sometimes and she said it was okay! So what do you say?” Tooru rocked on the balls of his feet and glanced up at Hajime with pleading eyes. It’d been a tactic, putting on a puppy-like look in order to convince him. It was an evil thing, because Tooru knew Hajime would always say yes.

“Okay,” Hajime had sighed, and Tooru pulled him into a hug so tight that they fell over.

The three of them had lunch together the next day, Tooru lodged between Emiko and Hajime at his desk. Their bento were unwrapped neatly in front of them. Tooru had begun eating first and he also kept having to speak to them first to get either of them to talk.

“Iwa-chan, don’t be rude,” Tooru had huffed after swallowing a hotdog shaped like a squid.

“I haven’t even said anything, Bitterkawa,” Hajime had said stiffly, glaring at Tooru before turning to Emiko. “How are you?”

Tooru hadn’t allowed Emiko to answer because he was so viscerally appalled by Hajime’s new nickname that he’d nearly spat out his food. “Bitterkawa? Really?”

Hajime snickered. “Would you rather me call you—”

“No! Not in front of Emikkun!”

Emiko scrunched her brows together and took a sip of her milk. “What’s the nickname?”

“Which one?” Hajime had replied calmly.

After finishing her drink, Emiko had said, “There’s more than one?”

“Iwa-chan, please have mercy on me! I promise I’ll let you win Street Fighter the next time we play!” Tooru had intervened, bringing those puppy eyes out again.

“Fine, but you have to buy your own milk bread when we pass by the bakery.”

“Unfair! You always buy me milk bread!”

And they’d bickered like that for what felt like forever, and they wouldn’t have stopped if Emiko hadn’t kissed Tooru on the cheek to distract him.

“Oh,” Tooru had hummed, blushing. Emiko looped an arm around Tooru’s and shifted closer to him.

“I like milk bread too, you know. Will you buy me some?” Emiko had said. “Can we get some after school?”

“Iwa-chan and I were going to—” Tooru turned to look at Hajime, who was silently packing up his bento and refusing eye contact. He clicked his tongue. “Okay. I’ll meet you outside of class.” The bell had rung and Tooru kissed Emiko’s cheek before returning back to his classes.

Emiko broke up with Tooru a week later for unspecified reasons, not that she needed one anyway. It would’ve been something stupid, something a twelve-year-old would say like that she just doesn’t like him anymore. She’d only been the first girlfriend of few, and throughout every one Tooru had, Hajime had been there to see them all.

***

_Hajime’s been around more than all your girlfriends combined. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that you like him more than you ever liked them._

***

Three knocks on the Iwaizumi front door signals Tooru’s attendance. It’s decently early, just a little past noon on a weekend.

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket, a navy peacoat thrown over his pyjamas. His thin pants are tucked into his shoes to prevent them from getting dirty. His glasses are perched atop the bridge of his nose and behind them are dark circles.

The door swings open after a short minute. “Oikawa-san,” Mari greets rather monotonously. She runs her fingers through her hair and pulls it back, tying it into a bushel to prevent it from falling in her face. A couple of frizzy baby hairs frame her forehead loosely.

Tooru puts on his best smile, but all it does is look unsettling. “Hi, Mari. Is your brother home?”

“No. He went out to get groceries with our mom half an hour ago. He’ll be back in a little. What’d you need?”

“Oh,” Tooru hums, pursing his lips. “I wanted to talk to him about graduation plans, since nationals is out of the picture.” In his pockets, he picks at hangnails and ignores whenever his fingertips feel wet.

Scratching her head, she says, “Ah, yeah. Hajime was pretty bummed about that.”

I know, Tooru wants to tell her. “Karasuno’s frustrating.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Interactions with Mari are unbearably awkward on both ends. Tooru has no qualms about her but she apparently does with him, and even after a decade he still doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s better not to ask.

“Alright. I’ll leave you alone then. I’ll probably just text him later. I hope you’re doing well in your volleyball team.” Tooru is about to twirl on his foot and leave, but Mari closes the door behind her and stands with him on the porch. She crosses her arms and Tooru takes that as a cue to stay.

“Are you planning to go to the same university?”

Tooru unsheathes his hands from his pockets and places them on his hips, leaning backwards ever so slightly and sighing. “Maybe. That’s what I wanted to talk to him about. I know he said he wanted to go to California.”

“So you’re deciding on whether or not you want to drag him along for another four years?”

Puzzlement slaps Tooru in the face. He knits his brows together and stares at Mari from an angle. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” Mari’s tone is not fond like Hajime’s is when he says that. Her voice is filled with venom and Tooru feels it seeping into his veins. He shivers.

“That’s no way to speak to your elders,” Tooru quips with a faux playful lilt.

“You don’t even know...” Mari mutters under her breath. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what? If you have something to tell me, just say it. I can handle it.”

“You make my brother miserable,” Mari says, honest, profound. Her brows are furrowed with a prominent wrinkle between them and her jaw is set, a mannerism that reminds Tooru too much of Hajime. Tooru is speechless. His chest is burning. The last thing Tooru would ever want to do is upset Hajime. The thought of the supposed heartache that Tooru has put Hajime through makes him feel as if he’s sinking, disappearing into a pit of tar made from his own molten form. His mother said Hajime would ruin him. She was wrong; it’s the other way around.

She continues, “And I hate you for it. That’s why. You can’t toy with him like that. You can’t do that to him anymore. He’s in...”

Tooru swallows and tilts his head back, inhaling and blinking fiercely. His eyes ache as much as his chest does; a dam begging to burst. “I don’t... I don’t understand.”

“You do, Oikawa-san. I know you do.” Mari braces her shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes. Her posture and form is statuesque, confident and defensive. Tooru has to look up at her. “Hajime has talked about you enough for me to know you’re not stupid. You just don’t want to admit it.”

Tooru knows the words on the tip of Mari’s tongue. He knows she wants to say it, but for her brother, she keeps quiet. All it does is twist the knife.

***

As Tooru steps back into his house, he immediately pushes himself to confront his mother. One arduous step after the other, he leaves his shoes in the genkan and pads through the first floor. His grandmother’s hand-me-down couch is blurred from his vision, as are the uncomfortably staged family photos hung up in the hallway’s wall. He walks, staring holes into the wooden flooring like they’ll open up and devour him.

He hears a show about house renovations being played from his mother’s television in her bedroom. Stopping by the kitchen, he rears back around and climbs up the staircase into the second floor. Nyoko’s old room has been turned into a guest room; that’s how it always felt anyway. His own bedroom is right beside it, his old alien posters and stickers removed completely from the stained wood. There are white spots on the door, indicating where those stickers were once placed. He passes them.

The door to his mother’s bedroom is opened just a crack, light from her bedside lamp pouring out from the sliver. He takes a breath, deep and trembling, and pushes the door open.

“Mom,” Tooru states, staring at the back of her head. She turns. Tooru has her eyes.

She lowers the television’s volume. “You’re awake. I haven’t made food yet so if you want to order you can.”

“You were wrong.” Tooru begins pulling at his hangnails again. “About Hajime. And about me, too.”

The television is turned off completely now.

Tooru continues, “And there’s nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with the way Hajime and I are—there never was.”

His mother is silent, most likely winded by Tooru’s words. He stands in the doorway and she sits facing him on her bed, her jaw held as tight as Tooru’s own. Seeing her vulnerable now creates a pit of guilt in Tooru’s stomach. He’s his mother, after all, but it isn’t enough of a justification to call him wrong.

“You can’t...” She drops her eyes to her hands in her lap. She stares at her empty ring finger. “You can’t love him.”

Tooru exhales a breath he never knew he was holding. “I’m not going to turn out like that.”

His mother turns the television back on and Tooru closes the door, burying his face into the confines of his palms. He shuts his eyes fiercely and blindly walks towards his room. He locks his bedroom door behind him and paces up to his window and opens it. The window across from his is Hajime’s. Tooru throws a pencil from his desk at it, apathetic towards the loss of it as it drops to the ground and ultimately disappears forever. Hajime’s head of messy hair perks up like a frightened cat before he opens the window and meets Tooru’s eyes. He’s back. Instantly, his expression shifts into something warm. He nods.

And Tooru looks at him, wordlessly, through his open window and thinks, if there’s one thing he’s certain about, it’s Hajime.

***

The comfort of Hajime’s bedroom is the one place Tooru can confidently call home. He knows it like he knows Hajime, eccentricities and all. The dresser by the door, the surface of it cluttered by photographs of him and his sisters and a jar of rocks he has collected over the years; his favourite rock, the one Tooru had given him at the beach when they were eight, sits on top of the jar like a king on his throne. The closet, barely filled by Hajime’s limited fashion sense of denim jackets, sweatpants, and hoodies; Tooru knows what they all smell like. The bed he hasn’t changed since he was fourteen, with a plush Godzilla he hasn’t thrown out since he got it a decade ago.

“C’mere,” says Hajime from the edge of his bed. His fingers curl into the blankets.

Tooru looks at him from where he stands at the window. Behind him the window is open, and behind that, his own window in the neighbouring house is gaping, too, but his bedroom feels a thousand miles away. Hajime reminds him he’s here.

“I hate it,” Tooru murmurs when he slumps onto the bed, the mattress dipping when he sits. Instinctively, he leans his head on Hajime’s shoulder. He feels Hajime’s hand around his waist instantaneously.

“I know.” Hajime presses his nose, that perfectly hooked beak Tooru would never change, into Tooru’s hair. He breathes him in. Tooru shudders.

“I just wanna stay here,” Tooru mumbles, folding his arms over his chest.

“But you hate my room. You get mad at me for how... incoherent it is. I still don’t understand how a room can be incoherent.”

“It makes sense, Iwa-chan. Your dresser looks like a train wreck but your closet looks like the sale section at an outlet mall. But it’s familiar too, you know.”

Hajime snorts against Tooru’s hair and pinches his side. Tooru yelps and only buries himself closer into Hajime’s embrace.

“You’re annoying.”

“And you’re just like your bedroom, but for some reason, Iwa-chan, I wanna stay here for the rest of my life.”

Pulling away slightly, Hajime glances down at Tooru. His lip is trembling underneath the grasp of his teeth. His thick, dark brows are knitted. Those green eyes of his are a target and Tooru is hitting a bullseye.

“Yeah?” Hajime inches closer, bumps his forehead with Tooru’s. His free hand reaches for the nape of Tooru’s neck.

“I want it,” Tooru says, barely a whisper. His breath ghosts Hajime’s chapped lips. Hajime calls him the stubborn one yet he still never uses the balm Tooru lends him. “I want you.”

Tooru feels Hajime nod, his head bobbing accordingly with the movement. His own hand travels to grab at Hajime’s bicep, long fingers wrapping around tanned skin. They shift closer, the mattress creaking beneath them, and Hajime brushes his nose with Tooru’s to tip his head upwards. Tooru smells the scent of deodorant and grass and cucumber body wash that Hajime leaves on his clothing; he wants to smell like it, too.

Hajime opens his mouth and Tooru catches it with his own, sloppily slotting their lips together. Tooru shuts his eyes fiercely, squeezing until he sees white speckles. Every part of his body is floating. Hajime keeps him grounded. Always has.

The feeling of Hajime’s mouth is a revelation—a drop of water in the desert, sunshine on a winter day. His lips are rough yet soft, firm although warm. Tooru submerges himself in it, in Hajime. Their lips move together like a steady current of water. Lapping and folding naturally like the way gravity pulls a river. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is right.

Tooru tangles his fingers into Hajime’s hair, perpetually dishevelled and forever familiar. His nose smushes into Hajime’s cheek. Between them they share warmth, shoulders digging into one another and thighs flush. Hajime moves the hand that was at his waist to cup Tooru’s jaw, calloused fingers scratching the skin of his face. Tooru nuzzles into it. Their breaths are intertwined—finally catching up with the rest of them.

“Hajime,” Tooru whimpers between kisses. Tears trickle down his cheekbones, settling at his chin before dropping. Hajime’s thumb swipes the wetness. “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I’ve been so selfish. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey,” Hajime mutters. He traps Tooru’s lips for a long beat, sobering him. “It’s over. It’s okay, Tooru. You’re okay.”

“But are we okay?”

Tooru inhales shakily and reclaims Hajime’s mouth. He kisses him fervently and desperately and his tears flow just as intensely. Hajime pulls away, holds Tooru’s face in his gentle hands. He dries his cheeks with the sleeve of his sweater and sets Tooru’s head back on his shoulder. With one hand he interlocks their fingers and rests them in the spot where their thighs meet. His other arm is looped around Tooru’s shoulder; his hand caresses Tooru’s cheek. The tears stop. It isn’t Hajime’s bedroom that feels like home—it’s this, it’s him.

“We will be.”

They sit like this on Hajime’s bed, still and melded together like the statue at the park, built and born attached, a time where they were separate completely nonexistent. Tooru understands now, why the creator made their faces blank. It could be anyone; it’s them. It’s been them the whole time.

***

When Tooru is twenty-one years old, he rediscovers himself. Volleyball remains an important thing in his life, and it has brought him all the way to Argentina, where he hones his expertise as a setter. He’s confident in more than one thing, now. He knows he can be number one.

“Thank you very much,” Tooru says in spanish, to the kind lady who delivered a drink to his hotel room. He waves cordially and grins before shutting the door and twisting the cap off the bottle. He sits carefully on his bed, now made to resemble how it looked when he had first arrived. The pillows are fluffed and tucked pristinely under the blankets. The room is spotless; all his things are packed and double-checked. The only thing Tooru has to change before leaving is closing the hotel window.

The breeze hits his bare neck and sends an additional refreshing chill as he simultaneously takes a sip from his drink. His phone on the coffee table buzzes: missed calls from Issei and Takahiro, a couple of texts from his teammates, one from his mother, one from Nyoko. From the minuscule thumbnail, he can see a person who looks a lot like Takeru. His hair has grown longer. He doesn’t bother to respond to the notifications because he’s going to have to leave soon anyway.

He thought he was lucky when he was offered a spot in Argentina, only a sophomore in college when it happened. Playing abroad had been the most nerve-wracking thing; the language barrier alone was daunting enough, and the feeling of alienation made him homesick more times than he can count. But it worked out, he ensured it would. He wasn’t lucky to get this spot—he earned it himself.

Finishing the drink, he tosses it into the garbage bin by the television and finally closes the window. He grabs his hotel card and his phone and his suitcase, slipping into his sneakers at the front door.

From his back pocket he pulls out a plane ticket to California. His phone buzzes again like it knows. Tooru smiles at the contact name on the screen. With outstretched wings, its feathers shaking off dirt from where they were once buried, he’s flying home.


End file.
